Most people would not have heard of Ethan Nwaneri until Sunday. The Hale Ender, who only made his under-21s debut two weeks ago, enjoyed the latest step of his meteoric rise as he was brought on during the closing stages of Arsenal's 3-0 win over Brentford to become the youngest player in Premier League history at 15 years and 181 days old.
Mikel Arteta admitted after the game that he had only met the teenager very recently himself. "I met the boy (and) really liked what I saw," the Spaniard said in his post-match press conference. "Per Mertesacker and the academy staff are giving me really good information, Edu as well. I met him, he’s trained a couple of times with us. Yesterday he had to come because we have injuries, especially the injury of Martin (Odegaard), and then I had that feeling from yesterday that if the opportunity could come that I was going to do it and I just done it."
Such a rapid ascent may give the impression that Nwaneri's story has come from nowhere, but in reality this is far from an accident. Instead it's the result of a deliberate policy shift that has brought the Arsenal academy into the spotlight once again.
